A non-OSNews-reader asks: "I've got 5 PCs that I'm trying to use to train disadvantaged young people. The problem is they are riddled with viruses and a firewall blocks me from updating them. The people in charge of maintaining the
PCs won't fix them or give me the admin password (Win XP) to let me
install a new or updated antivirus. The centre is being shut down in a
few months. If they were working, I could still do a lot with them, so I've been
looking for a good online virus scan - but they all try to download a
little .exe onto your PC first, and the settings on the PCs won't
allow that. Suggestions? Solutions? Links?" Read on for our recommendation. Update: It appears that this question is part of an elaborate email scam designed to propagate malware. See here for details.

1) boot from installation CD
2) when asked press "R" (repair
3) let "repair" windows
4) restart, but DO NOT REMOVE CD
5) when system starts (from CD) and you will see Installing devices progress bar
press Shift + F10
6) in CLI enter:
NUSRMGR.CPL
7) now you will see a window with user accounts
8) alternatively when in CLI enter:
control userpasswords2 and select logon without password
9) once admin password is modified close all windows and continue with repair. If you stop system repair, everything will go back to the original state (before changing password)
10) now you can boot to windows and install AV

This worked pretty well long time ago. Obviously this is security hole so it is possible that MS fixed this and if you have latest/updated XP install disk above operation will not work.